


What If

by shinlluminous



Series: Music in Ink [1]
Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-11
Updated: 2016-10-11
Packaged: 2018-08-21 22:02:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8261953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinlluminous/pseuds/shinlluminous
Summary: "When she told me she wasn’t the prettiest smiling, I told her countless of times that she was lying. When I asked her why she thought so, she’d shake her head, look away in silence. She still is the prettiest when she smiles. . .in somebody else’s arms."





	

(EXO - What If)

 

 

 

 

‘She opened a cafe just two blocks from here,’ Baekhyun told me. ‘A pretty cosy place to go to. You should check it out someday,’ he said, as if there was no history between the two of us. As if it was just another cafe he had given a good review for.

‘Is she always there?’ I asked.

‘Late at night, and on Sundays.’ He answered.

So here I was, hands on my steering, my lips pursed, and I glanced down at the bouquet of lavenders wrapped in a light brown paper. There was no note attached; if there was anything I could say to her in words, I wanted to say it with my voice. It was a Sunday night; I figured if she had anger bottled in her for me, then at least I would only spoil her night, not her entire day. I eyed the inside of the cafe.

 Baekhyun was right. The interior of the cafe was stunningly comfortable and warm. There were couches and low tables for the customers, shelves with books and magazines. _‘We could put the sofas here, like this, so that it makes an L shape. Wouldn’t that look good?’_ I loved her enthusiastic voice. _‘Lavenders would look good on that table wouldn’t it, Sehun?’_

And then I saw her.

I could feel my lungs rise as I inhaled, my eyes fixated on her. ‘Airi. .’ I heard myself murmur in the car. She was carrying a saucer with a cup towards a table, and she lowered herself, with a decent smile at the customer as she served them, nodding. She looked the same; the way her eyes grew wide when she looked at someone with such politeness and  sweet words didn’t change at all. But there was something about her that felt different. A glow in her eyes perhaps I didn’t know why exactly had I waited half an hour until she closed. Was I excited? Nervous? Afraid that I might be just a little too late? I didn’t know.

She sat at the counter, writing down things, calculating sales on her calculator under a dim white light. I called this my cue to go in. My knees were shaking. I was reluctant enough just to open the door of my car, hoping she would be too busy to notice me, paranoid that she might turn around and stare at me, and look away in a look of disgust and disappointment and shaking heads. I dragged my feet like two weights across the ground, the bouquet behind my back and I came to the door, turning the door handle only to find it locked. I raised the back of my knuckles, knocking weakly, and I immediately looked down, clasping my lips together.

The bell rang as the door opened and I raised my eyes to another girl. She smiled at me. ‘I’m sorry, sir-‘

‘Oh, no.’ I shook my head. I swallowed, licking my lips. ‘I’m here to see Airi,’ I told her. Her eyes wandered away as she processed the words.

‘Ah, okay.’ She stepped back and held the door. ‘Come in,’ she grinned.

‘Thank you,’ I said, and like a shy sheep I walked into the cafe. It was funny. It felt like being taken into time, when it is just an enclosed space, by four wooden walls. There was a warm mix of coffee and lavender lingering in the air; a hot comforting sensation that seemed to make my nose twitch and my palms sweat. I stretched uneasily in my turtleneck and coat, admiring left and right. There was a section on the right side of the wall, pasted with different-coloured cards, carrying notes in different handwritings.

She really had not changed at all.

She used to post all sorts of notes on our fridge, being the one who went to work early, juggling between that and her university classes.

 

_Sehun, I made you breakfast. Don’t forget to eat._

_Sehun, the dog needs a walk._

_Have a good day, Sehun._

_Call me when you get up :)_

Maybe that’s why I feel a little empty when I open the fridge to grab a can of beer or leftovers. I wasn’t really sure whether it was my heart or stomach. ‘Sehun?’ I heard the faint silence in the cafe break, and my neck stiffened. _I hoped, hoped, that she would call me the second time, the way she would every time she got back home in a tone of excitement that seemed to silence her exhaustion every time she saw me sitting on the couch waiting for her._

I turned to her.

 

And I waited.

 

And waited.

 

But she didn’t.

 

Because the next words she said to me was, ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked, a warm smile appearing on her face. She used to ask me things like that with wide eyes and an unsmiling face.

‘I, er-‘ I found myself stuttering, and in a confused haste I took out the bouquet from behind me and I saw her eyes trailing down to it, and her smile faded. Her lips used to curved helplessly every time she laid her eyes on lavenders, her feet by reflex would walks towards the purple small flowers, but it was different this time.

She seemed to take a small step back, and she raised her gaze at me, as if she couldn’t catch that it was a sincere gift from me. It was as if her eyes looked into mine, and she was screaming, _‘What is this? What are you doing?_

_And it hurt._

‘F-For you,’ I held it out to her, and she looked down on it before she finally took it from me.

‘T-Thank you,’ she replied, but it was all lies. Because I knew all she wanted to say was sorry, all she felt was guilt. It was like she saw through me but she decided to be polite and hear me speak anyway, and I was foolish enough to believe her. ‘D’you want to sit down?’ she asked, her eyes unsteady, lacking confidence. ‘Maybe I could make you something to drink?’

‘N-No, it’s okay.’ I told her, scratching the back of my neck.

‘Something to take back then? You must be rushing to places,’ she offered, her eyes deep, full of unfamiliar concern; the kind of eyes she would give a complete stranger as if I was someone stranded in the snow and sought to shelter in the warmth of her shop.

 

_And it hurt._

_It hurt that these were the same pair of eyes that used to look into hers for two years, but now she’s looking back at mine as if she had never come across them before._

‘Okay,’ I watched as she went behind the counter, working her magic.

No. . .that wasn’t it.

I internally hit myself hard in the head at the wrong assumptions, appalled at how I could have misinterpreted the way her eyes looked at me. No, I wasn’t a stranger. It wasn’t a case of amnesia that made looking at her so painful.

_It was fear._

_She feared me._

I grit my teeth as I watched her fix her gaze from me, the way she kept grinding her lips together, the way she didn’t breath easily, her unusual blinks. She was scared of me; of something I had become, or something I did. Of course she would be afraid. I pushed her away.

_‘I’m here, Sehun. Please don’t leave me hanging,’_

_‘No you’re not. You think you know what I feel but you don’t, and you never will. You think you’re acting all angelic, like you’re helping me through this shit but you can’t even help me so just, don’t, Airi please. Just fucking leave me alone,’_

And she still waited.

_‘Do you want me to make you anything? Aren’t you hungry?’_

_‘I’m going to bed,’_ I said to her coldly, waking up to an empty bed as always, with another note on the dining table the next morning.

_‘I got you caramel latte. Drink up while it’s still hot :)’_

I ended up throwing it all away in the sink.

I looked at Airi as she packed my drink and placed it on the counter, and a fresh coffee aroma filled the room. She waited from behind with a curious smile.

‘What is this?’ I asked, taking out my wallet.

‘Caramel latte,’ she answered, all excited, and almost forgot what I was doing flicking through the notes in my wallet. ‘It’s on me,’ she said. ‘Thanks, by the way, for the flowers.’

‘I can’t-‘

‘I insist,’ she interrupted. I nodded before I slid my wallet back into my pocket. ‘Have a good evening,’ she said as I took my drink, felt it hot in my hands. There was no, “Where are you headed?” or “What are you up to now?”. Just a “Have a good evening,”

‘Thank you, Airi.’ I couldn’t bear to look at her. ‘I missed you,’ I blurted out before I could hold those words back. I caught her smile turning weak before I turned my back and walked away. I shut my eyes from pain and I walked out quickly. The cold seemed more comforting now and I got into my car, starting the engine.

I sat, exhaling heavily as if the smell of the coffee had suffocated me. I looked back into the shop, and I saw her lowering her head, pressing her lips together, the way she always does when she feel bad. _She didn’t need to hear you say that. Not after so long, Sehun._

I watched her as she paced around, her arms crossed as if she was thinking. She twisted her neck before she sat back down and went back to her business as if I was that irrelevant to be on her mind for too long. Suddenly, she looked like I had never come in at all.

_God, how I miss her._

I know staying there and just watching her from afar was intoxicating me, but I didn’t care. I watched, as she got interrupted by a phone call, and all of a sudden the glow was in her eyes, in her smile again as she talked to the caller. She was twisting her black ponytail, her eyes wandering, looking one moment at the lights, another moment at the ceiling. Her feet was tapping the counter in a sequenced pattern like a restless child. Who is this caller?

I felt something shaking my ribs, looking at how small her eyes got as she laughed.

 

_How can she smile like that?_

 

Or perhaps the right question would be,

 

_Who was making her smile like that?_

It was as if God had heard me, because at that very moment I heard the bell ring again and I saw a man coming in, and Airi instantly turned her head, her eyes widening, her smile no less, and she hopped from her seat and ran to the man, muttering things nonstop. She pulled him by the sleeve of his coat to the counter and made him sit like a mother. He took off his coat, a decent looking man in brown hair, rather tall, but I didn’t make out his face. Airi was busy making coffee when he spotted the flower I gave her lying on the counter beside him and he said something, to which she turned and replied and the man smiled.

He walked over to her and she gave him a small cup with something steaming from it. Only then I saw his face as he took in the aroma. And Airi, my God how I wished she would look at me the way she looked at him. Airi stared at up at him with a pair of curious eyes, a steady, gaze that screamed adoring as she watched him take a sip of the drink, waiting for him to comment.

_Why didn’t she do that to me?_

My heart sank, seeing how comfortable she was, like she was a 5-year old girl who had drawn her father and showed it to him, waiting for praises. I looked away, my lips trembling. _Why couldn’t she do that to me?_

_Were you ever interested in the things she loved?_

I looked at the latte she had treated me to, and suddenly I remembered all the things she said.

 _‘You know when I make coffee and I hold the mug it reminds me of when Mum used to make me hot chocolate during winter, and I would pull my sleeve to my fingers like this because the mug would be too hot to touch,’_ she said with a small laugh. And all I replied was a monotonous nod.

_‘I don’t like to use the sticky notes with neon colours because I thought it might hurt your eyes when you come to the kitchen and you’ve just woken up and you see this. It’s such a bright colour, don’t you think? And you hate yellow,’_

They say the small details makes that person beautiful, and it sucks, and it hurts, and I don’t know who to blame that I have just come to notice it now.

I looked again, tears hanging on the rim of my eyes. She said I was lying when I told her she looked the prettiest smiling. Perhaps I was, because today she was more beautiful than she had ever been during the two years I loved her. She’s the most beautiful when she’s laughing in somebody else’s arms.  And I told her she made me smile when she laughed, so that when I get tired, she would send me a picture of her smiling. But I never thought that today, as I take one last glance, and I see another pair of arms around her, and her lips grinning wide it outshone the light in her eyes, that this time I’d be crying instead.

 

But I guess she was the only one that changed.

 

Because the caramel latte she made me ended up in the sink, like it did two years ago.


End file.
